> As with front-end requirements, software requirements should> be kept technology "ignorant" for as long as possible. That> allows all kinds of designers to participate in the design> phase, because requirements come from all directions too.

First I want to say, that in general, I totally agree that design and
technology should be separated as much as possible and I think that is what
Peter is saying.

I just want to make sure that what he is saying above is not saying that
design should be completely technology free throughout its process (even the
front-end design). I'm not quite sure if that makes sense. This could be
just one person reading extremes into a moderate statement, but I thought
that it is important for us all to realize that technology is part of the
constraints tha we work under as designers.

Not to get into the old HTML good/bad argument, but HTML creates constraints
that other technologies don't/ Even web application servers have differences
that could create front-end contraints we might not ideally have. We can't
ignore these constraints, in fact, we have to embrace them and mold them to
our own.

I remember Jeffrey Veen's book about his work at Hotwired all those years
and the part I liked most was his story about the first design. An imagemap
w/ a big blue border around it and how the design was part of embracing the
then very clear limitations of HTML.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure we weren't cutting off our nose despite our
face (or some weird metaphor like that).